Ballon Village is located on the busy N80 which services traffic between Rosslare and Dublin/Waterford via the M9, as well as traffic driving to and from Carlow town. Resultant traffic includes a substantial volume of HGVs. Ballon also has a number of local industries with large motor fleets and agricultural vehicles. A significant Health and Safety issue now exists within this growing village and our greatest concern is the lack of safety at the school crossing at all times of the day. It is a concern which has come into increasing focus for the Ballon National School Parents Association following a number of near-miss incidents at the crossing during school hours, as drivers frequently pass through even when the Warden is in place. The current speed limit of 50km/h is routinely not observed and vehicles frequently fail to stop for the School Warden, putting the Warden's life and our children's lives at serious risk. Proposed Solutions: 1. As visibility of the School Warden and the Crossing is exceptionally poor, we propose that the Crossing is raised and traffic lights are added to assist the existing School Warden. 2. Interactive radar speed signs which indicate the speed of the vehicles to be placed on all access routes to the village. 3. Reduce speed limit to 30km/h for the school zone, identified with LED lighting signage to identify this new 30km zone. 4. Signage to alert to the presence of a pedestrian crossing. 5. Speed bumps at both approaches to the village on the N80 and also on the Fenagh road approach. 6. A maintenance plan for the upkeep of signage, road markings and lights.

It prohibits the “publishing or uttering [of] matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion”. Fundamentalist organisations have cited Ireland’s law as best practice and has even proposed the adoption of its precise wording to limit human rights on freedom of conscience. Now Stephen Fry is being investigated under this terrible law. Now its time to scrap it. http://www.thejournal.ie/stephen-fry-complaint-of-blasphemy-3376318-May2017/?utm_source=facebook_short

Returned containers are then reused or recycled. A bit like the plastic bag levy, this system is proven to be very effective, recovering up to 95% of containers. Imagine the difference that would make to our coasts, countryside, towns & cities! Germany, Denmark, Netherlands have had successful deposit refund systems in place for years. The UK have just announced they are introducing a deposit scheme. Ireland is drowning in litter and we KNOW deposit refund systems work - with recovery rates of up to 95%. Luckily for us many other countries are already doing this, we won't need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to start taking some positive action!

There is a growing consensus amongst Irish people that the separation of church and state is necessary. The government have ignored calls for the scrapping of the Dáil prayer and are about to go a step further and force TD's to stand during the prayer. If they fail to do so, they risk being punished. Please help to show Enda Kenny and his government that this is not what the people of Ireland want. This new requirement is forcing our representatives to stand for a prayer that may be against their beliefs. This would not be required in any other workplace and so we ask that it is not introduced in government buildings.

This is important for all of us to have adequate time to cross. We must think of people who have walking disabilities, use a walker, are on crutches and wheelchairs, and our elderly who need more time than 4-6 seconds to cross.

Bernie is giving a speech on June 4th which sold out after 1 minute. There are thousands of people who are willing to pay to hear him speak, to hear a voice for the people. Someone who stands up for the environment, all people and the planet as a whole. My hope is that hearing Bernie speak could spark the revolution that is needed in Ireland so we can transform our country and go back to the values it was founded on.

A modern police force needs to be transparent and accountable. In light of the whistleblower, penalty points and breath tests scandals it is currently neither. If public confidence is to be somehow restored in the Gardai, Noirin O'Sullivan must resign.

On behalf of the DCU Students' Union, which consists of nearly 17,000 students, we are troubled by the new updates from Campus Residences Ltd., for the upcoming 2017/18 academic year. These include; - A 9% rent increase for Hampstead Accommodation. - An 11% rent increase for SPC and Larkfield Accommodation. This is a 49% rent increase in two academic years. I know that Campus Residences Ltd., only recently took it over but an 11% increase comparable to the quality of Larkfield accommodation type is unbelievable when you take into account the quality of accommodation provided on both campuses. - An 8% rent increase in some areas of Purcell House Accommodation. - That some rooms on Postgraduate Accommodation will see a 23% rent increase. It's hard enough to find accommodation for our students and for the college to drastically increase the cost of rent for our students at a time when we're having an accommodation crisis in Dublin shows a lack of compassion for the daily student struggles. We're asking Governing Body to come down from their Ivory Tower and realise that their demands are unrealistic and unfair.

Diesel Cars emit soot and NOx toxic fumes and are polluting our clean air and are bad for peoples' health. 70% of new cars purchased in Ireland are diesel - insane - due to the crazy Motor Tax Law that penalises older pre-2008 petrol cars but promotes purchase of new diesel cars. Paris to ban diesel cars from July 2017 ... many other cities to follow. Irish Motor Tax Law is regressive, 2-Tier and bad for your health. This Irish law puts high tax on pre-2008 cars and low tax on those who can afford new cars. It is socially divisive and totally unacceptable.

The CEO of An Post has said he will close over 250 post offices in sparsely populated areas, this year. This is totally unacceptable, it cannot be justified that because an area is sparsely populated, a post office is not necessary. It is more important than ever,as rural post offices are an essential part of the community, providing many services other than just to post letters. Among these are pensions, banking, phone top-up, paying bills, to name but a few. This is totally unacceptable. I live in Carrigaholt on the Loop Head Peninsula where our main industry is tourism. It is an area of approximately 1200 sq km, and unfortunately we fit the criteria. Our post office is already the only remaining one out of an original 5. People are already travelling over 15km to use it's services, and to expect them to journey even further is disgusting. I understand that An Post has to make money, but closing post offices and putting up postage is not the way. Install broadband in the post office, even more services can be accessed, more people will use the post office. If the paperwork is made redundant by the post office being "on-line" that alone will generate enough income to run the rural business. Carrigaholt Post Office is the heart of our village. It offers local and tourist information as well as the expected services, it is a meeting place where many go to socialise, it is so much more than is expected by An Post, but not by a rural community. The only time some people go out is to collect the pension and those that have to rely on others to get them there will be unable to collect it, or carry out other transactions if the nearest post office is even further away. It is no good telling us we can have our pensions paid into the bank as we have no permanent bank to do so, this also means travelling. Local businesses use the post office every day for things like coinage and fliers. They would be affected greatly by it's closure. To take away our post office would be to take the heart from our community. It would kill it! Whenever a business has to make "financial cuts", it's always the rural areas that are looked at first, not larger urban ones. This is because financially, country areas have very little to offer large corporate organisations. It matters nothing to these people that we are left with very little, or that to use the post office will involve over an hour's time to do the minimum business. What we do have though is our pride and affection for our local post office, and so now is the time to let the country know that we won't accept the closures!!

Bottled water is an invented consumer need.Thirty years ago the Irish public laughed at the idea of being sold a product that you could get from the tap for next to no cost. Today we feel as though bottled water is just a normal, or even essential, item to be included in our shopping baskets. In 2016, Irish consumers spent around €76.5 million on bottled water. We are sending about 800 million plastic bottles to be processed every year and are spending about €38 million annually on disposing of plastic bottles alone. This money could be used for investment in public drinking fountains, or for improving our public water infrastructure. By choosing to not consume bottled water, you will not only reduce the environmental impacts of plastics, but you will also eliminate a senseless daily expense. Plastic bottles pollute our oceans. About 80 percent of plastics found in our oceans come from land-based sources. In 2016, the United Nations World Oceans Assessment reported that as plastics entre the oceans they breakdown into microplastics. Plastics ingested by animals, such as fish, seabirds and marine mammals, can harm the intestines, and results in infection or death. Plastics also leach an assortment of dangerous chemicals into the water, and also act as a carrier for invasive species which can contaminate remote areas of the globe. The production and distribution of bottled water is a waste of resources. Research carried out by the Pacific Institute on the "energy implications of bottled water" in the United States worked out that bottled water is estimated to cost 2,000 times more than tap water to produce. The bottled water industry in the United States required an energy input equivalent to 54 million barrels of oil and roughly three times this amount is required to satisfy global bottled water demand. This adds around 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide to our atmosphere every year. The high energy cost of bottling water is not the only way in which this industry is needlessly wasteful. One litre of bottled water takes three litres of water to be produced. Fresh safe drinking water is a valuable, and over exploited resource that every living organism on this planet depends upon. It is not an overstatement to argue that the continued use of single-use plastic water bottles should be considered nonsensical, wasteful and extraordinarily expensive. By eliminating bottled water from your shopping bag you are helping us move towards meeting four Sustainable Development Goals. Often the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are thought of as only being relevant for protecting the most vulnerable ecosystems, and supporting the most disempowered communities, on our planet. People often forget that to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, social, economic and environmental problems that are endemic within western consumer-lead countries must be considered as integral to the project. Our seemingly inconsequential habits have direct effects on the health of the planet, and the livelihoods of some of the world's most vulnerable communities in the world. We need to become aware of the consequences of our actions, but we also need to be responsive, and take brave steps towards a truly sustainable future. Let's reduce our use of plastic bottles in Ireland, and all place pressure on the Irish government to stop selling, or providing, bottled water in public institutions. Don't Bottle It! Be Brave we can make this change.

MORE TRANSPORT LINKS NEEDED FOR CO LOUTH,TRAINS RUN THROUGH THE TOWN JUST NEED THEM TO STOP.